Ashley Siefert Nunes
WASHINGTON—Last year, the Biden administration pledged that the United States would double its contribution to $11.4 billion annually by 2024 for international financing to help low-income countries ramp up their clean energy deployment and adapt to mounting climate change impacts. However, the U.S. Congress failed to secure meaningful funding for these purposes in the year-end omnibus budget bill released today. This will worsen an already wide gap between the promise wealthy nations made to provide $100 billion in financial assistance annually starting in 2020 and what has been distributed to date to countries on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Below is a statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
“The minuscule amount appropriated by the U.S. Congress for international climate finance in the just-announced omnibus budget bill is shameful and represents a cut once inflation is taken into account. The climate crisis has precipitated a terrible, inequitable burden on poorer nations that desperately need funding to transition to clean energy and adapt to mounting climate impacts. The United States has repeatedly failed to adequately fund global climate efforts, and once again, the richest country in the world and the biggest historical contributor to carbon pollution has shown the world it simply doesn’t care to live up to its global climate responsibilities.”